Picture of the Dry Dock taken from a
postcard published by David Craze in his Portrait of Wivenhoe in Old
Picture Postcards, published in 1998.

The gantry was 180 feet long and 45 feet
high. It was constructed of 13 steel reinforced concrete pillars and was
used to lower steel plates onto the sides of vessels in the dock. It was
the only dry dock between Lowestoft and London, and reputedly, after its
extension in 1904, the largest one on the east coast of England.

When
the shipyard ceased in the early 1960s, and J. Gliksten & Son Ltd, the
London timber merchants, acquired the yard for importing timber, the
gantry was demolished.

Explosives
expert Mr John Narborough of Dersingham arranged for gelignite to be
placed around the 13 pillars, and after the concrete had been chipped away
and the steel reinforcing rods cut through, the structure came crashing
down on 8th September, 1966.

Much
of it fell into the dry dock, on top of the remains of the Cap Pilar, a
295 ton three-masted schooner built around 1900 and laid up at Wivenhoe
until being brought into the dry dock to be demolished, also using
explosives.

The dry dock
was eventually completely filled in by Glikstens, and concreted over, when
they strengthened the river bank to take two vessels to bring timber to
Wivenhoe.

Peter Hill (from some information supplied by Bill
Ellis)

Below: The Dry Dock as it
became in 2001, a 'feature' in the development called old Wivenhoe Quay,
built on the site of the old shipyard.

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Last updated:
05 January 2015

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